


Pink Neon Lights

by pacoca



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Reapers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Dancing, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Interspecies Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2018-11-15 05:35:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacoca/pseuds/pacoca
Summary: Jane Shepard was just a dancer in Afterlife when Omega first fell under the vigilante's scope.aka. Au where shep can dance.





	1. Chapter 1

**I.**

There they were. Two dark figures closing in at the edge of her vision. 

God _ ,  _ she really didn’t want to be right.

Ever since she’d left Afterlife, she’d had a strange, nagging feeling of being…  _ followed _ , somehow. It was easy to hide her suspicions under the neon and the noise of the business  districts where the traffic was the thickest, and she thought she’d be able to hide herself in the crowd long enough for the suspicion to disappear and yet…

They were getting closer. Jane didn’t need to look behind her to recognize the men following her were batarian.

Thankfully, this was the Kima District. Shes walked this place enough to know that the turn coming up to her left should lead to an apartment block with an open entrance. If she could just reach that place, she can hide inside the entrance long enough for those strangers to disappear. Then it was straight sprinting the hell out of there and back to her apartment.

Of course, she can always turn around and get physical. She’s always hated hiding. 

Jane mused at the image of her whirling around and beating the shit out of two batarians with a pink handbag. She was no soldier, but she’d always been told that she had a pretty mean right hook. If worst comes to worst, she wouldn’t back out from a fight, miniskirt and heels be damned.

She took the turn to her left and there was that open entrance, just as she thought. She’d almost breathed a sigh of relief. There were two strangers standing under the dark of the building. Probably more drunks, maybe a couple of kids getting their kicks with red sand. Nothing she couldn’t handle. She watched as they stepped out of the shadows, their bodies sinking under the quiet blue of the streetlights….

….and realised that they were batarian too.

_ Shit. _ She watched them walk towards her with that small, careful swagger as the ones behind her and knew she was fucked. She was being herded. 

If the batarians were known for one thing, it was for their slaves. She’d heard a few whispers here and there about an increasing amount of women disappearing from the streets for the past month but this was Omega, people disappeared every 15 minutes. She just never thought it would be her.

Jane felt the bile build up in her throat but there was no time to stop and be afraid. If she showed even just a fraction of weakness then this would all be over before it even began. Instead, she quickened her pace and turned another corner into a tighter alleyway. The tinier corners in here should lead to a larger street where hopefully, there would be a group of drunks she could mingle with until the batarians scatter off. 

Before she could make it far, another batarian stepped out across the alleyway in front of her, carrying that same, careful swagger that sent her lungs spiraling down the pits of her stomach.

Things started to go downhill from there. 

There was no time to think. She knew she was walking into a trap. But she also knew if she didn’t move, and  _ soon _ , one of those slavers would catch up to her and she had good reason to believe that at least one of them would have a gun under their belt. Jane quickly slid inside a corner, her heart pounding behind her ears like a set of drums. The batarians abandoned their pace and broke into a run. She heard their deep, throaty voices calling out to each other, telling each other where to go. She could almost feel them rumbling at the prickles of her neck.

‘Don’t let her get away!’ 

‘Get over there!’

Her foot caught at an upturned pipe and there was a deafening  _ splash! _ as she found herself face first on to the pavement. Mud and rock stuck onto her skin and she quickly pushed herself up with a grunt and sprinted off into the other side before they could catch up to the noise.

She tried not to think about the pain roaring at her cheek like an angry fire. Or the fact that she was running in her dancer heels, and every, agonizing step made a roaring  _ clap!  _ that echoed across the narrow corridors of the district. Right now, all that matters is to  _ get the hell away before they catch you Jane,  _ and the narrow opening in front of her, like a tunnel at the edge of heaven, that lead out into civilization and into the wide, open streets. 

But there was no heaven in omega, instead, there was an empty road and a suspiciously run-down sky car with an open door humming quietly only a few steps to her right.

The batarians who were waiting in front of the apartment must’ve taken a detour, because this was their plan all along. Lure the helpless young woman deep into a certain set of alleyways, right onto the open jaws of their getaway car. She knew this, because those batarians who had stalked her from under the apartment were already waiting for her beside the skycar, peering at her with those endless black eyes that made her blood run cold. 

Something in her snapped, some crazy fight-or-flight instinct, that made her decide to swing her handbag violently over her shoulder like a tiny, pink javelin. Instead of hitting home, it had somehow managed to twist itself and catch one of them by the neck. With a strong jerk, she’d slammed his face onto her knee. Blood spurt out of his nose like a fountain and splattered itself across her coat. Jane felt delirious and nauseous at the same time. Before anyone else can recover, she swung a right hook at the other one beside him. She cried out as her knuckles landed on his cheek with a painful crack. 

Suddenly, there were hands behind and all around her. Someone was holding the both of her arms and pulling it painfully behind her back.

‘Hold her dammit!’ 

‘She hit me!’

‘Shut her up before she screams!’

She twisted violently, kicking her legs and jerking her elbows, but his grip was too tight. More hands were holding her at her neck and her ankles and before she could yell, there was a piece of cloth stuffed at her mouth and a sharp inhale of chemicals oozing under her nose. 

_ Goddammit! _ They were incredibly strong, and Jane felt helpless, kicking and scrambling, . The more she struggled, the more the drug started to kick in, and soon enough she could feel the quiet blue streetlights of the Kima District melting into a puddle of black and grey.

_ This can’t be it… _ , her head was spinning and it was getting harder to think,  _...I’m not…  _

Suddenly, there was a loud  _ crack! _ as a splatter of brain exploded beside her cheek. . The batarian behind her dropped with a  _ thud _ , a thick red pool oozing out of the space where his head was supposed to be.

‘What---’ Another  _ crack!  _ This one staggered backwards from the force, his head split open like a melon. 

They barely had time to take out their weapons before another whizz and a  _ crack   _ and another one of them laid dead on the floor. Two left. One of them tried to grab her by the hair, but a bullet whizzed through his fingers, and straight through the head of a batarian behind her. They exploded in a bright shower of blood and bone. Before he could cry out, there was a bullet at the back of his mouth and he laid dead on the street with all the rest.

Jane didn’t know how long she stood there, heavy and ragged, staring at the five different pools of blood that soaked itself onto the heels of her shoes. Her eyes swam over the place the bullets came from, but only the quiet of the empty road stared back.

  
That was the first time she met Archangel. And it was the first time the streets of Omega ran red with the weight of his justice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a really big rewrite for chapter two.

 

When she got home, she vomited.

Jane didn’t know how she managed to stumble her way back into the apartment. What she could remember came at her in hazy bits of pieces, glazed over from the drugs still swimming in her system. There was red all over. Red on her hands, and on the water. Red that wasn’t hers and back to the open mouth of her toilet bowl as her insides emptied itself out until there was nothing left. 

There was black too. 16 sets of black eyeballs, peering back at her under the hum of the blue lights, their blood bursting open as bone and brain matter splayed itself across the pavement. 

She didn’t sleep at all that night.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


‘Jane! You’re wanted out!’ 

She couldn’t run away from work. Not when the rent was due in a couple of days. Somehow, she had managed to put on her best smile and drag her legs all the way to Afterlife.

Jane lifted a heavy eyelid and waved them off. She felt like someone had scrambled the insides of her skull. 

Working in afterlife was a special sort of hell, that both rewarded and punished in equal amounts. It was a good job, by Omega’s standards, and she was paid well enough to be able to afford a tiny apartment to herself. Though between the rent and the living expenses, she was still dirt poor but at least she had a job. 

Then, there came the costumes. Aria was obsessed with these red, latex bodysuits that clung onto her skin and dug itself several centimetres down her ass. It looked good on the rest of the asari with their blue skin and clear complexions, but coupled with her red hair, it only made her look like a freckled stop sign.

‘Jane! Ain’t getting paid to sit on your ass!’

‘Alright, alright I’m coming!’, she called out. She tousled her hair, downed a couple of pills of aspirin before stepping out onto the podium.

The building fizzled with energy. It was like a heartbeat, a pulse that rocked the core in waves of electricity until she was drowning under the colors of the neon lights. They washed over her in tides, sinking her in to their colors until her skin was seeping with their pigment. Tonight she was pink and red and green.

Jane closed her eyes. The musk of second hand cigarettes and the smell of body heat was oxygen to her lungs. She breathed in and let her legs guide her into the music.

She could still see it. 

Black, beady eyes blinking all around her, crawling at her skin. And then the smell of rotting corpse pooling beneath her, piling up and pulling her in.

If she’d reached out… she was so close, she could almost smell it.

Shepard’s eyes snapped open. For a moment there, she thought she was...

_Keep it together_ , she growled at herself. _You’re here_. _You’re alive._ _Keep it together_.

Shepard was no stranger to death. She’s seen plenty of that all around her. But being so close to it…. And knowing what almost happened to her…. 

It left a tremor on her body that was hard to ignore. 

‘Jane! Get over here!’ 

Garm, one of Aria’s lackeys, was furiously waving her over. He looked like someone had just left varren shit all over his breakfast. Jane sighed, and hopped off the podium. 

‘What?’ she frowned as Garm pulled her arm behind a private booth.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he growled.  

‘Dancing. Doing my job.’ she shrugged, ‘What the hell do  _ you _ think I was doing?’ 

‘I don't have time for your attitude. You were barely doing anything up there. You better pull it together before Aria notices or your ass is fired, got it?’ 

‘Loud and clear’, she drawled. Garm leveled her with a cold stare that reminded her too much of the ones the night before.  

‘Good.” he said finally. He pushed past her with a hard shove and left her to the booth.

Ass. 

 

 

 

 

Later, one of the girls, the nicer asari, pulled her aside to talk. 

‘Jane.’ Nes asked in her most sensitive,  _ are-you-alright _ , voice, ‘Are you alright?’ 

‘I’m fine’, Jane frowned. ‘Why?’ 

‘It's just-- You look a bit off up there.’ 

Alright, so maybe Garm had a point. She wasn’t exactly feeling her A-game at the moment. 

He was still an ass though.

  
  
  
  


 

 

‘What the hell did you just say?!’ 

Shepard winced. That particular krogan had been growing louder and louder ever since that turian showed up and ‘talked’ to him. Now, his voice was loud enough to carry over the music. She wouldn’t have cared so much if it wasn’t for that one dancer, one of the new asari girls, sitting smack dab in the middle of them. 

Telu was young for an asari, and a bit too sweet for a place like Omega. She’d come in the station a couple of months ago with nothing but her bondmate and a desperation to scramble for the scraps of something  _ good _ , even in a shithole like Omega. Jane would know. She was exactly the same a couple of years ago. 

Telu had those big, bright eyes that reminded Shepard of those little Earth puppies in the vids. Jane always had a bit of a soft spot for her.

It also didn’t help that her head was hurting worse than before, and she was more than eager to take it out on  _ someone _ before she rips her own head off.

The krogan abruptly stood up, flinging Telu off his lap. Telu landed on the floor with an audible ‘thump!’

Oh, that's  _ it _ .

Shepard shook her head, and hoped no one would notice the empty space on the podium where a dancer was supposed to be.

‘Hey!’ 

It was the turian who first paid attention to her. Jane noticed a flash of annoyance flicker across his mandibles as she strode over, heels stomping like an angry fist.

‘Hey! You!’ She barked. This time, the krogan turned towards her, muscles tense and ready to pounce.

‘What the hell do you want human?’ 

Shepard didn’t like that tone on him. ‘You causing trouble for one of our girls?’ She gestured over to Telu. Telu caressed her ankle, and silently gestured that she was  _ ‘okay’ _ with those big, bright eyes of hers. 

That just made her even more angry.

The krogan growled, ‘Stay out of this human.’ 

‘I don’t think so. And you better check that mouth of yours before I shove your foot in it. You cause trouble, and you’ll be out that door in two seconds.’ 

The turian placed a hand on her, ‘Look, Miss, let me deal with this---’ 

‘You too.’ She glared. He found the decency to let go of her shoulder and back off. 

‘You think I’d be scared of some slut from Omega?!’ The krogan was all fire now. Spit dribbled across his chin in streams, ‘You’re  _ nothing!  _ You hear that?! I can kill you right now and they’d never even know who the hell---Arck!’

Alien Biology 101, all krogan have a sensitive flap of skin right above the place where the rest of their armor meet. If you pinch it and rubbed your fingers in the right angle, you can twist a certain nerve in there that would send a sensation of choking on the brain, just enough to paralyse. If you’d missed, having the skin on your neck pinched and twisted was still a pretty damn painful experience. It was a good thing for this particular krogan however, that Shepard didn’t miss.

She pulled him towards her so he was choking just inches away from her nose. He smelt like ass. His fingers jerked and twitched at odd angles on his side. 

This time, her voice was low and hard. ‘Get the hell out of this bar. I’m not going to ask again.’ 

The krogan gasped, ‘Y-you piece of a----’

She twisted harder. ‘ _ Out.’ _

‘D-damn human!’ he choked out, ‘F-fine! Let me go--!’

Jane pushed him away, and she watched as the krogan pick himself up, and shove his way past a group of angry dancers.

‘Impressive.’ The turian flared, ‘Never seen a krogan run off quite so---’

‘You’re not off the hook either.’ She snapped towards him, ‘Whatever you two were fighting about, I don’t want it following you in the club. So you best get the hell out of here before I make you.’

‘Look, I’m sorry for the trouble, but I had it completely under control. I--’

Jane crossed her arms and gestured towards the door. The turian sighed, shook his head at her, and left.

When she was sure the both of them were gone, she helped Telu up and quickly looked her over for any bruises. ‘I’m fine, Jane.’ Telu sighed. ‘Really, you don't need to worry..’

_ That's what they all say. _

‘You sure they didn’t hurt you anywhere else?’ She frowned. Was it so wrong to be worried? Telu was only 109 after all, ‘You can trust me about this you know.’

‘I know, I know.’ Telu rolled her eyes, smiling, ‘Thanks a lot though Jane. You were like a superhero back there.’

Shepard chuckled at that and gave the asari a quick two-fingered salute, ‘Just doing my job.’

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Of course, that was the moment that Garm decided to come in, again. She didn't need to turn around to see the smoke that was probably fuming out of his many nostrils. 

She was a dancer, not a bouncer. 

Right. 

  
  
  
  


 

Garm decided to let her go home early before Aria finds out what a ‘piss-poor’ job she’s been doing the entire night. 

‘You don't leave that podium until we tell you to.’ She remembered him saying.

She’d sighed at that, completely exasperated. ‘He was harassing an employee. I was keeping the peace.’ 

‘Not your job.’ he told her again.

That was bad news. Rent was due in a couple of days, and she knew that there was going to be a large, gaping hole in her bank account if she didn't collect her full wages for today.

At the same time, her head was throbbing like crazy and it was probably better to miss a couple of hours then to get fired from her job completely because she was hungover. 

He’d promptly lead her out in the dressing room after that. 

Now, he was draped across his couch, his legs sprawled across the armrests like some kind of greek tragedy. Garm was one of their ‘caretakers’, a part of Aria’s lackeys that was in charge of overseeing her dancers. He was supposed to befriend them too, but most of the time he was too pissy to be considered good conversation.

Shepard carefully tore her clothes off of her. Sweat had made her bodysuit stick to her skin like tape and she had to physically peel the thing off. Whoever had the genius idea of announcing  _ plastic  _ as a valid type of clothing was going to get their eyelashes ripped off. 

When she had finally returned to the soft embrace of cotton and leather, she noticed Garm was looking her over with an appraising look that was a little too unsettling to ignore.

She raised an eyebrow at him, ‘Checking out the merchandise, Garm? Didn’t know you were big on aliens.’ 

‘I’m not.’ he huffed, ‘Just reminded me though, that job’s still up if you want it. Aria’s looking for more girls to train and you fit the bill.’  

This again. ‘Not interested.’ 

‘Not here to beg. Just letting you know she’s looking for girls. A lot of people like to fuck girls with red hair. You better use it while you still got it.’

Jane frowned, ‘What happened to ‘ _ not here to beg’ _ ?’

Garm shrugged and replied, ‘Just letting you know.’ 

  
  
  
  
  


 Jane stepped into the bustle and the smoke of the city streets. Omega’s atmosphere was coated with a neverending layer of smog and dust. Pollution drifted in the air like a disease, she can feel it clinging inside the walls of her lungs when she breathes.

It was just like home.

 There was a large clatter of metal as someone was flung off from inside an alleyway and down onto the hard cement.

That was just like home too.

‘Don’t show your face here again,  _ turian _ !’ Someone spat. Sounded like krogan. A very familiar krogan. 

She turned towards the noise and watched as the krogan disappeared inside the city traffic. That was the same krogan that she threw off from the club about half an hour ago. Has he been roughing up the same turian this entire time? 

Jane watched as the turian tried to hold himself up on his knees. She would be the first to admit that she couldn’t tell most turians apart from each other, but it was hard not to forget the intense  _ blue _ of this one particular turian. 

‘Son of a….’ he muttered, caressing a slack mandible. He looked like he’d gotten several blows towards his forehead, and a particularly nasty one on one of his mandibles.

Jane knew she shouldn’t feel guilty about it. It was none of her business what they do outside the club. But she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He looked so….

_ Young. _ How long has he been staying in omega?

‘Are you planning on sitting there the whole night?’ 

The turian glanced up towards her. His eyes were the sharpest of blues, like drowning in a pool of ice. She’d never even noticed before. She held a hand out towards him.

‘Oh… uh, thanks.’ He took her hand and heaved as he hauled himself up. He was much heavier than she thought. 

‘Don’t mention it.’ 

He didn’t let go of her hand after that. He only stared. She watched as he tilted his head towards her, his mandibles flickering lightly beside his cheeks. His mouth seems to open and close, like he was arguing against himself. He looked at her with those clear blue eyes and Shepard could feel herself drowning inside them.

_ And he was still staring.  _

‘Are.. you going to give me back my hand?’  Jane frowned. 

‘Sorry, ah…’ He coughed nervously to himself and let his hands fall back to his sides, ‘Thanks for the help.’ 

‘I didn’t do anything.’ She shrugged. He probably remembered her as that loud-mouthed dancer back in the club.

‘Are.. you okay?’ She asked, gesturing towards his bruises, ‘You look pretty banged up over there.’

‘I’ll heal,’ he chuckled, ‘Some krogan over here just don’t like it when turians ask too many questions.’ 

‘Most people here are like that.’ 

‘Well, consider this my first proper introduction to the station.’ 

‘New, huh?’ Jane smirked. She’d said it like a statement, not a question. 

The turian nodded, ‘Was I that obvious?’

‘Didn’t get a proper look at you inside, but I’d say from the quality of that armor and the way you glance behind your back ever so often, then yeah, you’re a bit of an eyesore.’ 

‘Inside?’ He squinted at her.

‘Yeah. Back inside the club? When I had to kick you out…?”

The turian looked at her dumbfounded, then seemed to snap  _ ‘Oh!’ _ , like a lightbulb had lit up on his head. So he didn’t recognize her from inside...

Why was he acting so strangely before? 

He chuckled to himself before replying, ‘Right. Remind me to add a sprinkle of dirt and grime next time I put on new armor.’

Well, maybe he was just a very strange turian. She wondered how long before he either gets a) robbed, or b) haggled into joining one of those tiny merc bands  _ and then _ robbed. 

She’d bet on somewhere under 3 days.

‘The dirt’s for free. All you have to do is piss off old krogan with abnormally thin neck skin, and you might get a face full of it behind an alleyway’. He laughed at that, a loud, hearty laugh that had her chuckling in return.

She liked him. She liked his humour. 

‘You know, I’ve got a bit of medi-gel on me. I’m not sure if it’s any good for turians but…’ She took it out and showed it to him.

‘It, uh, it should be alright. Thanks.’ 

Well, she had to make sure it was really good for him. No point in wasting perfectly good medi-gel. Jane took a bit of the stuff on her fingers and let her hand hover over his bruises. She watched as he flinched away from her fingers . ‘Can I?’ 

‘Sure.’ His voice had grown softer now. Nervous again. ‘Go ahead.’ 

Jane stepped towards him and added a thin layer of medi-gel on one of his nastier bruises. His plates felt rough against her fingers, like a valley of hard rock. She can feel his skin moving underneath them. 

‘Feel anything from that?’. 

The turian quirked towards her. ‘I… think it’s good.’ 

‘Good.’ She took her hand away and handed him the rest of the medi-gel. ‘I’ve gotta go. Take care of yourself next time, new guy.’

‘Garrus.’ He said, before adding, ‘Thanks for the help, uh…’ 

‘Shepard.’ She shrugged, ‘Jane. And don’t mention it.’ 

Shepard slung her bag over her shoulder and disappeared inside the traffic before he even had the chance to say goodbye. 

‘Jane…’ The letters soaked in his tongue, soft and slow, like he was picking it apart. He thought about the electricity of her red hair under the quiet blue of those streetlights, and wondered just how small the galaxy really was. 


End file.
